Tobias Hochstetler hopes he never has to rescue a fellow scuba diver, but if he does, he’s ready. This week, the 12-year-old Tiburon resident just completed an intensive PADI rescue diving course on the island of Maui, securing himself a spot as one of the youngest PADI rescue divers.
It’s just the latest of Hochstetler’s age-defying accomplishments since he began diving about a year ago.
Hochstetler’s passion for adventure and connecting to nature — swimming alongside turtles, fish and octopuses — has taken him around the world. He earned his open water certification and received advanced dive training at the Sinai Blues Diving Center in the Red Sea in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and completed research-based diving in South Africa to search for rare pyjama sharks and better understand the area’s sustainable kelp forests.
In light of the devastating wildfires that recently hit Maui, Hochstetler, an incoming seventh-grader at Marin Montessori School in Corte Madera, has volunteered for the Maui Humane Society and handed out supplies to those affected at the Lahaina Gateway.
Q What got you into diving?
A My father, Matt, was diving before I was born, and I got into it because he was doing it. We have been able to dive together in places like South Africa and Hawaii. It is fun to be doing it with my father. I went to a dive shop in Marin and I just asked what I would do or need. When I first started diving, I was hooked. People have been amazed that I am interested in it.
Q What do you love about diving?
A I love seeing the underwater world and I love feeling the feeling of weightlessness that comes with it.
Q What inspired you to want to do rescue diving?
A Other people said it was one of the most rewarding courses that PADI offers and looking back, it was probably one of the most fun and interesting courses I’ve done. The group I was with was very fun and the skills were very serious but at the same time, it was intriguing to know how you can help people when things come up.
Q What does passing it entail?
A You do a bunch of skills. Before the course, you have to do an emergency responses course, which is like the land skills, CPR, rescue breaths and bandaging. Then the course itself goes over a bunch of skills and then you use those skills in the scenario where there were two instructors with us and one of them hid in the water and the other one came back and was like, “I lost my dive buddy.” We did search pattern, brought them up, and then brought them to shore.
Q How did it compare to other things you’ve done?
A It was different because it’s a way you can help more people, so that kind of changed the course. It feels nice to have the skills.
Q How has it been volunteering on the island, too?
A It’s nice because this is like a second home for us. My mom has a small business here in property management and I’ve done dives here.
Q What dives stand out?
A This one dive in Cape Town. The water there is really cold and we were swimming through the kelp forest and the kelp forest was very tough. You had to pull yourself forward through it. It was hard and this little fish was following us throughout the whole dive, which kind of made it.
Q Have you always been drawn to the water or marine life?
A I always liked snorkeling around the reefs. I have a GoPro that I take with me underwater. My favorite image was a turtle like surfacing because I had never seen that from underwater before.
Q Besides diving, what do you like to do?
A I climb at home. I have been doing it a year or two. I was visiting my cousins and we went to a local rock climbing gym there and I liked it there and I found one at home and started doing it there.
Q What are you hoping to do next?
A I was thinking of doing a dive in the Monterey area. It’s just kind of where, what happens next.
